Although NAIDOC Week is in only its 50th year, it was 219 years ago that the First Fleet came from England to Australia and, in effect, started taking the land, food supplies and water resources from our Aboriginal people. They also bought with them European diseases such as chickenpox, smallpox, influenza and the measles.

I often wonder how we would feel if a race of people who believed they were superior to us came and invaded our country today? What if our way of life or our laws regarding land ownership were different to theirs, and they took it upon themselves to change them?

I can hear some of you now saying: ‘‘That would never happen.''

Well, why not?

I'm sure the Aboriginal people living in this country before 1788 had no idea of the different way of life that would soon be forced upon them. The settlers took the view that indigenous Australians were ‘‘nomads'' and pushed them off the land they needed for farming - stripping away their spiritual and cultural connections.

I've always wondered why things were done so differently here compared to places like New Zealand where a treaty was entered into that entitled Europeans to land ownership. A friend of mine recently travelled to New Zealand and said she noticed the Maori people were treated with so much more respect than our indigenous Australians.

I can't help but think that if the settlers had shown Aboriginal people more respect in the first place things would have been very different for them today.

I attended our council's NAIDOC Family Day at Picton Botanic Gardens on the weekend and it was great to see so many people there to learn more.

Organisers planned the day for the rest of us to connect with the shire's Aboriginal community and it was a great success.

I think this shows that despite the invasion, the massacres and the stolen generation the people of Wollondilly are looking forward to a better future alongside our Aboriginal community.

We can't take back what's happened in the past, but we can move forward together for a much better future.